Mark Green's Atheopaganism Blog

I am the first to cop to it: I am a rather disputatious person.

I was a debater in high school and college. Fanatical about it, actually: the theory, the logic (and fallacies), the strategy and tactics, endless hours researching evidence and writing briefs in the days long before the Internet.

I am generally pretty skeptical. Many of the ways I have come to understand who I am–as an atheist, as a Pagan, as a nontheist Pagan, as an activist for political change–arise from deep contention with how the world has been arranged by the history of humanity leading up to my life, by how so much of it now is, in my estimation, factually wrong and morally cruel, ecologically disastrous.

If I had a life motto, it might be, This Could Be Better.

You could suggest that this arises from having been raised in a fog of gaslighting, but whatevs: it’s here.

I like a good argument. I don’t suffer people with weak arguments very gladly, I’m afraid; particularly when those arguments defend the things that are so wrong in our world.

I am the first to grant that I could often be more graceful about all this, but I’m often not. The self-deception, the ignorance, the cruelty anger me. The harm to people and planet. I weep, but I also roar.

This is one reason why I have found the Atheopagan community to be such a haven. Smart, caring people with kind values supporting one another, by and large. Yes, we sometimes have conflicts. Yes, sometimes people have gone away mad–sometimes at me in particular, sometimes because the community has not reflected back to them what they expected they would see. But overall, the good folks in the AP community–online on Facebook and Discord, and in person in affinity groups and at the Suntree Retreat–help me to be kinder when I do take exception. They invite me to be my best self.

In biology and psychology, we talk about “nature versus nurture”. How much of our personalities and behavior are genetically programmed, and how much a result of our environment?

There is certainly no easy answer to that question. In my own case, maybe I’m just a lawyerly person, coded into my DNA. But growing up in a context where it was clear that those in power did not have my best interests at heart–yet lied effusively to claim they did–must have potentiated certain qualities over others. Must have taught me particular strategies for survival.

Meanwhile, looking around, these are particularly disputatious times.

In my country a fascist government is doing what it can to stamp out every bit of justice, of ecological reason, of kindness, mostly simply because they know it will hurt those they view as their enemies. There is no deeper logic than this, no vision. Simply destruction and cruelty for their own sakes, to “own the libs”.

And that same kind of gaslighting–like calling a war on inclusiveness and diversity policies “anti-racist”–is central to the fascists’ playbook.

The rise of the authoritarian right throughout the world is creating a steadily rising sense of stress and oppression among kind and liberal people everywhere. A pall hangs over the nation and much of the world; whether it is helplessly witnessing the slaughter in Gaza or watching far-right racist/misogynist/homophobic parties ascend or environmental protections being scrapped even as the planet heats up alarmingly.

Any sensible/sensitive person can feel the weight of the times. It’s hard, when the project of misery is on the march, to posit with confidence a better future. To have, as a U.S. President in better times once said, “the audacity of hope.”

And yet, that is what we must do.

1943-45 was a nightmare in most of the world. But in short order, once most of the authoritarians were overthrown, reason and kindness were again ascendant. 15-20 years later, things were completely different than they were under the era of fascism. The American Civil Rights, feminist and environmental movements launched and solidified. The modern liberal social democracies of Europe likewise.

We have to know now: this has happened before. And humanity has recovered in key ways. Not all ways, and not in all places, but still.

Times like these test a person like me, because the rage that rises at the sheer wrongness of what my government is doing is hard to keep tamped down.

All of the above is to say that if you’re having more conflicts lately, you’re not alone. Especially online. The general Internet culture of (often anonymous) meanness combines with the vicious aggression modeled by current “leadership” to make for really poisonous exchanges. If you find yourself in one of those, just know: it’s not entirely your fault.

My hope is that Atheopagan spaces can remain, by and large, safe and welcoming, and that we can find ways to talk about fractious subjects that don’t lead to hurt feelings and broken connections. That we can always be a haven for thoughtful, warm, shared experiences and connections.

Which may, in fact, help us to have longer fuses when it comes to interactions in less friendly spaces.

I hope.